“They were judging me for who I am, not for the job I was being asked to do, and that’s wrong, and I was hurt,” he said. “I’m doing this so everyone knows it’s wrong, so it doesn’t happen to anyone else.”

I would just like to point out that this was my favorite part of the article. This man is absolutely right. What happened to him was completely wrong, and in my opinion, it would be foolish to hire someone who was born a male who does a worse job as opposed to a man who was born female who would do a great job. While I do not know how well El'Jai did his job, I do not believe that his position would have truly required that the employee be a male. If El'Jai has undergone a sex change, or even if he has not, he clearly identifies himself with being a male. I do not see why there is a problem in this. If he wants to work there, let him. Let HIM. Had the employer not "heard" that he was transgender, the employer never would have known the difference.

Like others have already stated, I too was reminded of the section of the Intersections book that talked about the different sexes, or rather, those we don't really mention. I think that this ideology is one that the world is going to have to adapt to at some point. We cannot keep treating people this way, for they are just as human as any of the rest of us. If we are trying to eliminate discriminatory behavior from mankind, and are trying to be a more accepting population, then why is the firing of a transgender from a job acceptable? It seems contradictory. It seems wrong. It is wrong.

Another thing in relation to discrimination against transgenders is the discrimination of women in the work environment. As we said in class on Monday when three students spoke to us, women are thought of as less able to perform the same tasks as men. And not only that, but I was unaware of the term TNA, or "tits and ass," but found it to be so rude, especially in an organization that is respected and honored by so many Americans. I was appalled to hear that women were judged this way and am finding that discrimination against genders, of all types, is still present, and its eradication is still a work in progress.

The film we watched in class was most definitely moving, and it allowed you to see the dark side of war, the side that shows you that war not only affects those killed or wounded in battle, but those who are psychologically damaged, and those who are trying to help them.

I thought it was incredibly saddening to hear that the one man hung himself after many months of dealing with PTSD. It is perhaps even more saddening and sobering that his mother was able to see he was different, and he played that song for her, and yet she could not stop him. It was sad to see his relationship fail because of his psychological problems after returning from war. These things, I am now seeing, can happen to anyone, and can truly affect the rest of someone’s life.

I was happy that we were given the opportunity to hear from a young man, I believe his name was Jacob, and see first hand just how war has affected him. It is different when you hear it coming out of a person’s mouth who has gone through it or is going through it over someone who does not know exactly how someone else feels. It seems more real, and it made me wonder what Jacob must have been like before the war.

I know that I would most likely never make it through a war, and would probably be psychologically damaged if I did. I can only imagine the amount of stress and depression these people are experiencing, and can only say that I wish it were not this way. It is not fair that young men and women have to watch people, many innocent, die in front of them for something they may not even agree to be fighting for.

Something that struck me was when the one man spoke about how he initiated fire on a woman walking nearby, who was holding something they believed to be a weapon, and how guilty he felt when he realized that he had just killed an innocent civilian. Not only did he shoot at her, but fifteen others did as well. It is things like this that make me despise war, and I am sure several soldiers feel the same way.

As I was watching this, up to about halfway through, I had my opinions on what this woman was saying and was not fully agreeing with her. However, when she began to make statements about the men who refuse to pick up a gun, and the children with hate in their hearts, I became teary-eyed, and no longer felt she was wrong about anything she was saying.

She not only appealed to the emotional side of these civilians who are hurting because of war, but she stated several incredible and rather startling statistics. The prevalence of women in children in these statistics was mind-blowing. 85 percent in some cases were women and children.

She vocalized her point with such grace, and in a way that was not angry so much as passionate. I imagined each woman she explained, and thought about their incredible stories and felt that I should be doing something to help these people, to let their voices be heard, to have their fears erased.

Fear is a huge theme of war, if not the main one. She spoke so eloquently of its pervasiveness that really, one cannot turn away from it and must face its realness. There is absolutely no reason why innocent children should have to watch their father and nine-year-old brother be killed and their mother be raped in front of them. No reason whatsoever. There is absolutely no excuse.

She makes a great point, that we only see the side of the war that has to do with money, casualties, weapons. Well, what about those that are still alive? What about what they are still dealing with? Even after wars are “over”? The destruction to both their exterior and interior is indescribable and unable to be fixed.

While Iraq is going through war and Haiti is recovering from a natural disaster, this woman’s speech brought me to think of our guest speaker today. I thought he was wonderful, and truly wish him and his family the best. He seemed like a very insightful person who had been through things I could not imagine, and I was truly touched and able to put myself in his shoes if only for a brief moment. He is correct in saying that the media has not exaggerated anything because we have not even understood the full capacity of this terror. I wish the best for Haiti, and for the civilians in all areas of the world who are suffering from war.

I find this to be a very interesting topic, and one that I have thought of personally. I feel that religion is most certainly slipping away from the lives of many people as the world is just changing in ways that causes new ideologies to form. I am not surprised at these statistics at all, it makes perfect sense.

Today’s youth especially is becoming a generation of “rebels,” who are losing faith in God. I have noticed this especially with people from my high school and with my sister and her friends. It seems that people are beginning to think that there is no God for if there were there would not be so much tragedy. Just today, I saw something on the internet that read, “Hello, God. How are you? Killed many cancer patients today? Let many children starve? Write back soon.” This is a prime example of people not believing in God, or “blaming” God.

While I do not think religion will be gone completely at all anytime soon, I do believe that as time progresses, more and more people will “follow the majority” as this article stated. In class, we mentioned how people do things after they see other people do them, for example, like getting everyone at a concert to stand up. One person starts, the next person gets up, and their friend gets up, and the next thing you know people throughout the audience get up because they realize it’s okay.

I think a lot of people use religion out of fear, fear that they will have no answers without it. I personally see it as an excuse and am agnostic, or atheist even. I do not believe in God, I have no solid proof telling me to do so. I also do not agree that God would love everyone no matter what. I do not think that one can say “I’m sorry” and be forgiven by God. It honestly just does not make any sense. I think more people are beginning to see things in this and other ways. And these people will share their ideas, which will lead to the loss of religion.

I am truly at a loss for words after reading this person’s story. I am assuming after reading the part about the long hair that the person speaking is a male. Either way, this story is truly horrific. I am, however, having some doubts as to whether the story is fully true and not at least in part a work of fiction. I raise this question because of the way some things do not seem to make sense to me. For example, how come the anger and abuse was only directed towards one child? And how did the other siblings decide to agree with their parents. I suppose a risk of being killed was in that bribe somewhere, but it still confuses me as to why it was directed at one child. Also, how did the mother contribute to this? She seems to just agree that what is happening is fine, but how do two individuals form such an agreement to torment their child?

Also, if he was abused and raped, honestly, how did no one notice? It seems a bit strange that a teacher or someone would not have reported something, it just seems that there would have to be something at least somewhat noticeable. There’s no way a mother could lie to a teacher that much and that often.

And this may seem vulgar and rather disturbing, but I wonder why if his parents wanted so badly for him to kill himself, why they wouldn’t set up a “suicide.” Why would they want him to kill himself but would rather go to jail for killing him than abusing him? To keep abusing him until he kills himself I suppose, but then why want him to kill himself if they enjoy abusing him? It all seems a bit off.

I know I am in no position to say this man is a liar, I am only seeking truth, and am interested, hence my many questions. In the case that this is somewhat embellished, I wish the person well and am happy to hear that they are no longer suicidal.

Reading the story, I came across a lot of similar thoughts. At first I was afraid of where else this would go, then to pure sadness, to somewhat disbelief and confusion. I find it outrageous that this person did not seek help for so long at the fear of being murdered. I feel that there could have been a way to solve this differently, regardless of people not believing them. How did no one notice any bruises on the person's body? And why was it only directed towards them, and not the other siblings? You're right, we may never know the truth, but it certainly raises a lot of questions.

What this young man has exemplified through his speech is that one’s parents’ sexual orientation does not affect the content of one’s character. Had Zach Wahls given a speech on any other topic with such confidence and passion, not a single audience member would be able to figure out whether he had or had not been raised by a gay couple. What I think this says, is that gay couples make just as good parents as any heterosexual couple.

I personally think that individuals who are raised by gay parents grow to be more well-rounded, respectable people because of their ability to be open to those who are different from themselves, or from what is considered “normal.” They are more accepting, and because of having learned that homosexuality is okay, they do not grow up to be judgmental of the sexual orientation of others. I think this says a lot. If everyone could be accepting of homosexuals and if we could abolish homophobia, there would be a lot less hate crime in today’s society.

For example, just this past year, there were several instances of young adult males killing themselves over the taunting they suffered for being gay. Why a person would want to drive a person to take their own life for their sexual orientation is beyond me.

Personally, I do not see how anyone would win this argument against Zach Wahls. He very clearly and completely backed his argument and appealed to the audience by stating that he is just like all of their children, and his family is just like an of theirs. While very straightforward in his argument, he is also clearly emotional about his family, and has dealt with the judgment that having gay parents brings in our society.

As we discussed in class, gay parents make as good of parents as heterosexual parents, and I see Zach Wahls as a prime example of this. He is a seemingly very intelligent young man with a lot of things going for him. While some can argue that he made this life for himself, one must remember that someone helped get him there.

I do believe the the R word can be taken as offensive, and I do tend to catch myself before using it at times, however, I do not think any sort of retaliation will stop its use. It is the same as calling something gay: it offends a certain group of people, even though it’s not referring to anyone in particular. People use terms like “gay” and “retard” to express that something is outside of their norm, much like homosexuals and mentally/physically disabled for example are outside of the majority of people’s norms because they themselves are not homosexual or mentally/physically disabled.

I think calling people the N word, or Italians degos could be considered the same thing. I can say that the show Jersey Shore offends me, and that the fact that the next season is to be shot in Italy completely appalls me, but that will not stop the show from being aired or shot in Italy. I think just because people do not make as big a fuss about being called a dego, it is not paid attention to as much. I understand that the use of “retard” is much more present than dego, obviously it is, however, I think the fact still remains that the argument against its use is the same: it offends a certain group of people.

It also seems that people will use these terms until it affects them directly, for example, having a sibling who has Down’s Syndrome will cause one to become offended when someone else uses the term “retard.” This is understandable, however, I feel that because of the circumstances the outcome of the term’s usage is altered. Had that sibling’s disability not been present, the chance of the person using “retard” to describe something would most definitely increase.

First of all, I think Sir Ken Robinson, who was speaking on the subject of education, did an excellent job at showing the mental capacity a person has by demonstrating his point the way he did: by drawing it. Most people I know would be incredibly impressed with this and say, “I wouldn’t have the patience to do that.” Not to say I would, however, it’s an obvious fact that we could all do that, but we choose not to. He states that if the route to getting a degree “marginalizes what we think is important about ourselves.” This, I feel in most cases, is creativity. Academics do not revolve around creativity, there must be one answer and things are one way and there is no room for creativity. Our creativity is shut down, and as Sir Robinson said, the arts are not as accepted.

I think there are definitely the “academic” people” and the “non-academic” people, which becomes stereotyped into “smart” or “not smart”, when in fact, “many brilliant people think they’re not.” I completely agree with this statement and will one hundred percent blame it on the educational system. It diminishes the ability for people to think outside the box, and it becomes a challenge for people. I think this, in the long run, affects more than just education and careers, but social lives and relationships. If people were not so shut down to be themselves there would not be as many self-esteem issues, people without spouses or divorce, and there would be a much happier environment in groups, as stated in this video.

I think he is absolutely correct by saying that kids are becoming alienated and are failing to see the point of going to school, and in a sense, my being in college makes me jealous of those who are not. Several of those who are not will not experience the debt I will, and are actually enjoying their lives currently. Also, the amount of money I could potentially make after college is not guaranteed to be more than the person who is not going to college. This is especially true today, with college graduates not being able to find a job because of the poor job market we have. I especially, being a film major, am extremely concerned with my future and sometimes wonder why I am even in college.

I totally agree with what this guy is saying. The invisible strings cause us to believe that there is someone out there for everyone, but because of how many people there are in the world, it's unlikely that the person you will marry lives half way around the world, hence why so many people who marry know each other long before they even form a relationship, or meet in high school/college. I think that the people you meet in high school or college are the ones that we "feel" are the ones for us, simply because, well, we haven't met everyone living in China or Colombia or even another state. We almost take what we can get, and when it feels really good and like it can't get better, we don't think, "Oh wait, but what if my true soulmate is living in Chile right now and will move here next week and become my neighbor and blah blah." No. We are led to believe that we will find someone so when we think we have, we hold onto it.

However, my romantic side wants to rebut this argument because it is not only the idea that there are others out there for us, but the idea that we should find someone who accepts us for who we are. And when we find someone like that, we become vulnerable, consumed, and feel a love like no other. It's highly romantic, and persuades us that this is it, this is my future, my love, what I've been searching for. We are happy, regardless of the other people out there. While the ideas are similar, and I'm having a difficult time separating them though it should be easy, they have very different roots. The invisible strings give us an impression that finding your true love is supposed to be romantic and all, but what if it's really just that? We really just want love, and find it and are happy?

To go off on another tangent, however, I think the idea of there being more than one person out there for everyone is becoming a growing thought in society, as the rates of divorce are sky-rocketing. People say they marry their soul mate, and divorce, only to find their REAL soul mate, and remarry. Is this suggesting we have more than one soul mate? If so, how do we know which one is the perfect one? Or the one we're supposed to be with? Or that they are supposed to be with? I don't think we'll ever truly know the answer to that question, and that is why, "If I didn't have you, someone else would do."